


Run like the divil

by wesleyfanfiction_archivist



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-09
Updated: 2005-07-09
Packaged: 2018-05-31 10:29:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6466759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesleyfanfiction_archivist/pseuds/wesleyfanfiction_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel celebrates St Patrick's day. Wesley helps him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run like the divil

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [WesleyFanfiction.net](http://fanlore.org/wiki/WesleyFanFiction.Net). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [WesleyFanfiction.net collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesleyfanfiction/profile).

He’s there.

Knows it, and not just because of the whole superhuman vampiric sensory perception thing. He supposes that it’s innate, that the man cannot help it. 

But Wesley hovers.

Is there far too early in the morning, pottering at the coffee machine, piling up texts to be translated, coded, filed, creating work that does need to be done, but just not urgently. Is there far too late at night, curled over his desk, his glasses gradually making their way down from the bridge of his nose, till he is peering shortsightedly at the text. Till he comes out of his own office and orders him home, for sleep, or food, or whatever it is that Rogue Demon hunters do in their spare time. 

But he’s there, now. Hovering. Not just translating, which is what he normally spends his evenings doing. Tonight he is actually physically hovering. 

If Cordy was here she would smack Wesley on the arm, harder than she would mean to, and tell him to get his sorry ass home. He wishes Cordelia were here.

He places a finger in the slim leather bound volume and reaches down to the desk for his book mark. A picture of her; it conjures up a mixture of emotions for him now, most recently a feeling of profound grief at his friend’s sacrifice.

‘The good fight, yeah? - You never know until you’ve been tested – I get that now.’

And he misses him more today, knows that he would have produced a bottle of some godawful blend, and would it have killed him to buy a bottle of Bush now and again, and they would have toasted to Patrick and Slemish and Wolfe Tone and anything else they could think of that reminded them of their shared heritage.

And the last thing he wants today is to hear that soft cultured accent, the tightly clipped consonants and velvety vowel sounds of Received Pronunciation floating on the warmth of late evening air.

‘Angel?’ He now appears in the doorway, holding a bag in one hand, and adjusting his glasses with the other; in that Clark Kent way, that makes him Feel. Like. Snapping.

‘What is it, Wesley?’ Giving every sibilant its full worth, making no attempt to hide the impatience in his voice.

And he hesitates. Hovers, then hesitates again. Angel thinks he might just have to smack him himself. 

‘I – um, er, that is… to say…’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Wesley, just come in!’ 

And he does, enters the room nervously, tension evident in his stumbling footsteps, bumping into a chair hard enough to leave a hot dark bruise on his thigh. A soft hiss his only concession to the obvious pain. Makes it to the relative safety of a chair opposite his own, and sits, placing the bag on the desk.

‘I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind some company.’

And he opens the bag, removes a bottle which bears no label, and Angel feels a peculiar catch in his chest. Can’t be. Where would Wesley get it?

Now the Englishman is unscrewing the cap on the bottle and Angel rises to fetch shot glasses. Wesley makes that particularly annoying clicking sound with his tongue and shakes his head. 

‘Angel, I’m disappointed. Have you no sense of tradition?’ 

Suddenly he is no longer nervous, shy, hovering Wesley. He stands up, goes over to the shelf and lifts down two teacups for them. Pours a good measure of the tea coloured brew into each cup. Hands one to Angel and raises his own.

‘Slainte.’

The younger man takes a deep swig from his cup, and hisses appreciatively as he swallows the liquid. 

Angel follows suit, and feels the pleasant burn of mountain tay on his tongue, lighting a fire all the way to the pit of his stomach. This was the real stuff, tasted like it could send you blind if you overindulged.

‘Thank you Aunt Matilda.’ There’s a broad grin on Wesley’s face now, and it’s almost infectious.

‘Yeah, thank you Aunt Matilda,’ Angel echoes, and sips again at the poteen. ‘Whoever the hell you are.’

‘My mother’s great aunt,’ he offers in explanation. ‘She lives in Connemara.’

And before he can stop himself he is singing, softly under his breath, words that he has not sung since he was human, and out too late and drinking too hard.

‘Stand your ground! It is too late  
The excise men are at the gate  
Glory be to Paddy, but they’re drinking it nate  
In the hills of Connemara.’

Wesley smile grows wider, and he begins to sing, too.

‘Gather up the pots and the ould tin can,  
The mash, the corn, the barley and the bran.  
Run like the divil from the excise man,  
Keep the smoke from rising, Barney.’

He wonders briefly into what alternative universe he has inadvertently stumbled tonight. Hearing that perfect English accent twisting into an almost passable brogue. 

‘Her husband was a Resident Magistrate,’ Wesley explains, almost apologetically.

Of course. He should have realized. Bloody English. 

‘Protestant?’

‘Church of England, twice on a Sunday.’ Wes takes another sip and grimaces with pleasure.

‘Oppressed the poor, and beat the servants regularly?’ he enquires, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.

‘Indubitably.’ Wes nods sagely. ‘Deflowered the local virgins too, I shouldn’t wonder.’

They relax into their chairs and continue the process of becoming pleasantly inebriated. And Angel doesn’t think too much on how he needs this, and on how exactly Wesley knew that this was how they would have spent St. Patrick’s Day. Is content just to let things be. 

*~*~*~*

He sips his own drink, and stretches out in the worn leather club chair, feet roasting in front of a peat fire. Smells like heaven, unsurprisingly. Watches the two men below sliding into blissful oblivion, and Irish eyes dance with mischievous pleasure.  
He raises his own teacup, filled with the same illicit liquor, and toasts Aunt Matilda too. Then begins to hum softly.

_‘Mountain breezes whisper low,_  
Hear their echo in the ven below’  
See the ould gobeens are on the go,  
In the hills of Connemara.’ 


End file.
